ABSTRACT
Japan's participation in peacekeeping operations, broadly defined, began when the Gulf War of 1990–1991 1 ended. Japan sent minesweepers from its Self-Defence Forces to the Gulf as part of a multinational force, led by the United States, whose task it was to punish Iraq, restore Kuwait's territory, and assure peace and innocent passage. The Gulf War was not a United Nations peacekeeping operation. But it is significant that the intervention was conducted in close consultation with the United Nations Security Council. In fact, it was tied much more closely to the United Nations than was the intervention in Korea in the early 1950s when the United States took a far more unilateral initiative once the Security Council had decided that the United Nations should indeed intervene. 2
